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Just looking at the pictures made me feel dizzy, so quite what the actual experience was like I’d rather not contemplate. The two climbers who spent more than a fortnight scaling the sheer face of El Capitan in the Yosemite National Park could this week look down from the 3,000 foot summit with a huge sense of exhilaration and relief. They’ll doubtless feel that the achievement will more than compensate for masses of bruises and badly torn hands.

They might also be reflecting on what they’ve discovered about themselves. After a fall during the unaided free climb which would have killed them if they hadn’t been wearing safety ropes, and needing to take time to recover, one of them posted online, ‘As disappointing as this is, I’m learning new levels of patience, perseverance and desire. I’m not giving up.’ And he didn’t.

He volunteered for the ordeal, of course. In many of the situations which call for extraordinary patience and endurance - family crises, trouble with health, money, work - we have little choice. Certainly that’s the experience of the men featured in another story this week - those still being detained at Guantanamo Bay. A ÃÛÑ¿´«Ã½ correspondent reported the words of a lawyer visiting one of his clients there. ‘They can do nothing but wait,’ he said. One detainee told me that patience was their only weapon.’

A powerful image, that - patience as a weapon. This is not the acquiescence which simply accepts whatever happens, meekly submits to harsh demands, sees abuse and injustice and refuses to shout about it. Rather it’s the patience of a mental toughness which goes on soaking up indignities, because it remains convinced that what is right will have the final word - very much in the spirit of Jesus who, we are told, ‘endured the cross, despising the shame’ because of the joy ahead.

Shaker Aamer, the last British resident in Guantanamo, has been there for 13 years. He’s given many accounts of brutal treatment, staged hunger strikes and spent long periods in solitary confinement. He’s never been charged with any offence, let alone tried and convicted, has long been cleared for transfer, and yet repeated requests from the UK government that he be returned to his family here continue to be rejected.

Not surprisingly, his physical and mental health get worse. Last year he wrote of feeling lonely, lost and confused. And yet with patience still his weapon he insisted: ‘I have no doubt that justice will prevail and the light of the truth will shine all over the world… I hope to see the sun of justice, peace and happiness with my own eyes. It will be a great day. If I don’t get to see that sun, please remember that I have endured all this in the name of justice.’

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